Strategic Policing Priorities 2009 – 2010

Last Monday saw the Home Secretary laying her Strategic Policing Priorities for 09/10 before Parliament. The SPP’s provide the national framework within which police authorities then set their local policing plans.

Emphasis in these SPP’s is placed on enabling forces to tackle the issues that matter most locally and on getting best value for money for the public from the resources devoted to policing.

The rhetoric of the statement is quite interesting, painting, as it does, the need for ‘a continuum of effective policing which relies on effective collaboration and co-ordination amongst relevant partners’ with ‘forces and authorities working outside and across individual force boundaries’ and ‘in the interests of regions and the country’. Place shaping and speedier, more focused, collaboration take one pace forward.

The emphasis on the ‘cohesive view of all aspects of policing’ is clear and strong. Linking neighbourhood policing, protective services and specilaist crime and stressing the importance of responsive, quality delivery across all service dimensions.

The SPPs for 2009-10 are to:

Continue to increase public confidence in the police through tackling local priorities; also to reduce and prevent crime and anti-social behaviour and help tackle the problems caused by drug and alcohol misuse, in line with PSAs 23 and 25, and in a coordinated approach with other CJS partners deliver an effective criminal justice response in line with PSA24;

Work jointly with police forces and other agencies, such as SOCA and UKBA, to ensure that the capability and capacity exists across England and Wales to deliver effective protective services, including tackling serious and organised crime;

Work with and through partners and local communities to tackle terrorism and violent extremism in line with the counter terrorism strategy (CONTEST) and PSA 26; and

Work in all of the above, in line with the Efficiency and Productivity Strategy for the Police Service, to ensure the best use of resources to deliver: significant cashable improvements; more effective deployment of the workforce; and to realise benefits of new technology.